A magical flower that stops time, an orchid that has a rather strange effect on the people that take care of it, a creature that does more with a lawnmower than cut grass, a love affair begun and ended in a garden, and much, much, more. With selections grown from the fertile imaginations of the twentieth century's most remarkable authors, editor and writer Michele Slung has assembled an enchanting and evocative anthology of short stories about gardens and all that grow in them.

The gardeners here are young and old, male and female, and the gardens themselves are delightful mix of the formal and the wild. The twenty-four stories in The Garden of Reading comprise a diverse and unexpected collection but one that stays true to its central and harmonious theme. Included are Colette's sensuous "Grape Harvest," David Gueterson's poignant "The Flower Garden," Stephen King's sinister "The Lawnmower Man," J.G. Ballard's lovely and otherworldy "The Garden of Time," the ominous "Green Thoughts" by John Collier, Rosamunde Pilcher's touching and simply titled "The Tree," and the splendid "the Fig Tree, by V.S. Pritchett as well as classics from such masters as Saki, Robert Graves, and Eudora Welty, and contemporary writing from the likes of Sandra Cisneros and Garrison Keillor.

If you've ever nurtured a flower, a green plant, a tomato plant, or a gleam of imagination, there's something in The Garden of Reading that is sure to delight.

Michele Slung is an editor and reviewer whose books include the national bestsellers Momilies: As My Mother Used to Say and More Momilies, as well as the anthologies Crime on Her Mind: Fifteen Stories of Female Sleuths from the Victorian Era to the Forties; Murder & Other Acts of Literature; Stranger: Dark Tales of Eerie Encounters; Living with Cannibals and Other Women's Adventures, and Slow Hand: Women Writing Erotica. She divides her time between New York City and Ulster County, New York.